


Whack-A-Mole

by benevolentmonolithicc



Category: CARAVAN - The Whisperforge (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, I guess there sort of is major character death but he's already dead first episode so...idk, The rating is for language, Virgyl POV, You know I'm usually better at coming up with additional tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:42:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25409374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/benevolentmonolithicc/pseuds/benevolentmonolithicc
Summary: It wasn’t that Virgyl had meant to find the corpse, but he had nonetheless.
Relationships: Samir/Carlyle, Virgyl & Kerberos, Virgyl & Samir
Comments: 1
Kudos: 14





	Whack-A-Mole

**Author's Note:**

  * For [noodl_eboy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/noodl_eboy/gifts).



It wasn’t that Virgyl had meant to find the corpse, but he had nonetheless. There is was, a crumpled human form dressed like an outsider, and a boring one at that, and it was in Virgyl’s way. He was busy, (he was a he at present), and he was busy with the sort of things that couldn't wait. It’s not like he could just avoid walking Kerberos.

So there he was, a dog’s leash in hand, Canyon dust starting to still on his suit pants, and eyes locked on a body, and not in the fun way. What do you do in that situation? It was hardly the first corpse Virgyl had seen, and it wasn’t like he hadn’t made a few himself. But this one felt different somehow. There was a weight to it that Virgyl couldn't quite explain. A significance. Kerberos pawed at the body and poked his squashed little nose around it. Virgyl sighed and pulled his leash away with probably more force than was necessary. There was no point in waiting for corpses to do anything interesting. If this body on the Canyon floor was going to be anything worth paying attention to, it would do it in its own time. And Virgyl didn't have the time to wait now. He had a dog to walk.

The second time he saw the corpse, it was an active effort. So fate had decided the corpse would be useful sooner rather than later. Who knew? The fiery outsider on the canyon top loved this lifeless corpse, (the one Virgyl was struggling to pry up from the sands of the Canyon floor), in a way that almost made Virgyl jealous if that wasn’t a stupid emotion. And love was exploitable. So here Virgyl was, ruining his suit with red and cursing the heaviness of the dead. Kerberos barked at his feet, and Virgyl glared at him. Barking wasn’t going to get this ten-ton oaf out of the Canyon before the vultures came. Barking wasn’t going to do anything other than give Virgyl a headache. He could feel one already forming and he grit his teeth. He would get through this just like he always did. Without Kerberos’ help, the useless ass.

The echo itself wasn’t a surprise, but the second one was. In fact, Virgyl did a double-take, which was fun. He wasn’t surprised by very much. It felt nice. Weird definitely, but nice. The first echo had been easy enough to snag. It was new, bleary-eyed, and it could barely stand from the pain it was in. And it should definitely have been sitting in that secret room Virgyl was oh so proud of acquiring. But that didn't change the facts that here was an echo of the same lifeless corpse that he had passed not too long ago.

Virgyl made his way towards it and just stared at the thing for a few seconds. It was ordinary, almost to an aggressive degree. There were no glowing eyes or strange tattoos. No horns or scales, pointed teeth, or even a set of abs to get Virgyl's blood going. Just a tubby nobody that definitely shouldn’t have been there.

Virgyl poked it with his foot. “Are you alive?”

“Who are you?” croaked the figure. It squinted at Virgyl, and tried to hold its hand up to its eyes to shield them from the sun, but could only manage to wince.

“That would be a yes then.” Virgyl sighed and ran a hand through his slick black hair. “Can you walk? You were very heavy last time and I don’t particularly want to carry you again.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Oh, nothing important,” said Virgyl waving his hand at the echo dismissively. “I take it that’s a no on the walking?”

The echo tried to stand, and barely got it’s head an inch off the ground before it let out a shriek of pain. “I-I don’t think so.”

“Well, that’s just great.” Virgyl stretched and placed his long, thin hands on the echo’s shoulders. “Do try not to talk. It’s an unnecessary annoyance. And please, keep the wincing to a minimum.”

The third echo was able to walk, but it also talked far more, and so it evened out irritation wise. When he saw it, Virgyl let out a very long sigh and rubbed his eyes for a while before he even bothered to go up to the un-damned thing.

“Samir?” he asked it. The echo jumped when it saw him.

“How’d you know my-”

“Unimportant. Come with me?" Virgyl turned on his heel and gestured for the echo to follow.

The echo’s face scrunched in confusion. “Wait, I don’t even know your-”

“Listen.” And Virgyl held a finger to the echo’s lips to silence it. “You can walk this time, which means this can go faster than it had before. Please don’t ruin this moment with words.” The echo just gaped at him.

“Who _are_ you?”

Virgyl did not sigh audibly, but he sighed with his very being. “I mean, I feel like I was very clear about the talking. Come on.”

The fourth echo tried to stone him. It was an odd experience. Not necessarily an unpleasant one, just an odd one. Virgyl had never been stoned before, not like that. He had to drag that one too. He hadn’t expected it to be so hard to knock out, but a stone to the head is very good at incapacitating a human when angled just right. That was not the case for a djinn, unfortunately enough for the echo, but that wasn’t really a concern of Virgyl’s.

The fifth echo was found by Kerberos. Dogs like Virgyl’s had very, very little purpose, and even fewer uses, but every now and again Kerberos would deem it appropriate to be useful for a change. Virgyl had decided to let the little monster off its leash, and despite him never taking his eyes off of its excited, sporadic movements around the Canyon, he didn’t see it vanish for a moment, just reappear with a familiar face in tow.

The face of the echo was warmer this time, a smile permeating its lips as it watched Virgyl’s stupid little dog yap around it. It tore its eyes away from Kerberos and grinned at Virgyl.

“Is this your dog?” There was a merriment in this echo that had been absent from the others. That was probably Kerberos’ doing.

“Yes. You’re Samir?”

“Um, yeah, actually. How’d you know?” The echo’s smile wavered for a moment, but the Kerberos started licking its leg, and the smile returned. It kneeled down and scratched Kerberos’s ears.

“Carlyle.” That was that outsider's name, right? It sounded right. He’d looked like a Carlyle. Awful name.

“Lyle? You’ve seen Lyle?” A new expression passed through the echo’s face, and Virgyl realized with a start that this Samir probably loved the other outsider just as much as he loved Samir. That was good information, and something he should have picked up sooner, all told. He usually had a very good sense for these sorts of things. 

“Do you want to see him?” Virgyl asked, bemused. Love. Why it was always love with these humans? Such a silly emotion. So easily exploitable.

“More than anything,” the echo breathed. For a moment, for a brief and stupid moment that Virgyl would deny forever, he almost envied the echo for it.

Kerberos proved invaluable at something for once. For all his faults and fallacies and idiocies, and they were numerous, Kerberos seemed to be exceptional at finding the echoes. And the echoes were _everywhere_. They kept popping up. No sooner had Virgyl lugged the nth one to where he needed to, there was another one. He lost track of how many he had, and they were starting to fill his room. He had to do something with them.

The solution was one that an echo gave him funnily enough. Echo number who-give-a-shit took one look at the room of Samir's and let out a hollow laugh.

“What are you doing? Making some sort of clone army? Am I the Boba Fett?” Now, Virgyl wasn’t sure what a "Boba Fett" was, but he had always been a firm believer in killing two birds with one stone. And if one bird was the mass of echoes that filled his nice secret room and the other was the deposition of Baal? Well, Virgyl had always been one to throw stones.

And the echoes didn’t stop coming. It was like playing wack-a-mole, though it is a very different game in the Canyon. The reactions were as varied as the locations the echoes appeared in. Some, like the fourth, tried to attack him, but the echoes were weak and slow, and they tended to trip over their own feet. That, at least, was amusing. Others were just confused. They blinked up at Virgyl with film covered eyes and trembled dust-caked lips. But by and large, the moment Virgyl told the echoes that he was a friend of Carlyle's, they seemed to come quietly enough. It was always easiest to exploit love.

Love was something that fascinated Virgyl. It was so powerful, a one-man jet fuel, an A-Bomb in the corner, the strongest bind and greatest blinder. There was something entrancing about the way that the echo said Carlyle’s name. The frantic need to see him, the instant protectivity. How did Virgyl know Carlyle? Why had Carlyle never mentioned him before? One time Virgyl had replied to the ladder with, “He’s certainly talked to me about you,” and the echo had almost fallen over.

Once, when an echo spawned in a particularly inconvenient place, Virgyl asked it about love.

“What do you mean?” The echo was scratching Kerberos’ ears just like it always did when they were together.

“I don’t understand why the question’s so hard,” Virgyl huffed.

“You asked what’s _love_ like.”

“And?”

The echo grinned incredulously at Virgyl. “You’ve never loved anything? Not ever your dog?”

“That’s different.” Virgyl gave Kerberos a contemptuous look. “My emotions towards Kerberos are not what I mean.”

“What do you mean then?”

“Like what you feel for Carlyle.” It was a dreadful name and it felt more so on Virgyl’s lips. “And what he feels for you.” The echo froze where he stood.

“What did you say?” Its voice was barely a whisper.

“I know you heard me.”

“No, but I couldn’t have.” The echo stopped his petting of Kerberos, who whined at the sudden pause in the affection train. “Did...did he say something to you?”

Virgyl laughed. “He didn’t have to.”

“About how he feels or about how I do?”

“Either. Neither. Look, I don’t particularly care about your little soap opera. Amusing as it is to watch, it’s not something I enjoy being part of.”

“Well too bad!” Kerberos wiggled himself out of the echo's arms, but it barely seemed to notice. “If you don’t even know what love it, then how can you tell me how I feel, or how Carlyle feels?”

“What do _you_ know about love?” snapped Virgyl. “You’re dead.”

Virgyl didn’t bother asking any more echoes about love after that.

The echo in the throne room shouldn’t have been there, nor should it have kept on going after Virgyl sent it away. He'd let one go - one! - and off it went finding the fucking Book of Hours. That sort of thing was why Virgyl loathed mercy. You show mercy and you give them the power to find the only thing in all of...anything that can kill you. And then when the time came, when everything had gone wrong, Virgyl's cards laid on the table and his hand empty that cursed thing couldn't even do it. He just deliberated until it was too late. It wasn’t fair. The echo shouldn’t have done as much as it did. It should have been poking around where it didn't belong. It shouldn’t have _been_ at all. And Virgyl should have left the corpse he and Kerberos found to rot.

**Author's Note:**

> Virgyl stop being a dick to Kerberos 2k20


End file.
